Some of you question if there’s ever a great time to be a walk-on football player. Several of my pals who were walk-on football players would raise the loudest objection. It appears to be a thankless role. You put it the same time and work as the scholarship players but without the reward of glory or financial assistance.

On Saturdays, when Neyland Stadium becomes a cauldron of passion, you stand anonymous on the sideline in a uniform that never gets dirty. Or, worse, sit in the stands.

There are several doors opened at least a crack as Jeremy Pruitt puts his first Tennessee team through spring practice. For instance, the spring roster on UT’s website lists nine scholarship receivers and seven walk-on receivers. (One, Zack Weatherly, is the son of 1960s Ole Miss quarterback Jim Weatherly, a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the man who penned “Midnight Train To Georgia.”)

Zack Weatherly(Photo: Chattanooga athletics)

Walk-ons outnumber scholarship players at running back. There are four walk-on tight ends.

Spring practice is the time to catch the eye of Pruitt and his new coaching staff. It’s a clean slate. Healthy bodies are in short supply. Take the offensive line. You need five of them to line up and run a play. By necessity, walk-ons Brian Garvey, Joe Keeler, Tommy Sprague and Joey Cave should get a bunch of reps this spring.

Coleman Thomas (55) and Brian Garvey (69) participate in a drill during the third practice of University of Tennessee football preseason, at University of Tennessee on Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2016. (CAITIE MCMEKIN/NEWS SENTINEL)(Photo: Caitie McMekin)

Will anything come of it? Probably not. Spring workhorses never heard from in the fall is a familiar story.

But sometimes that door of opportunity does stay open.

Sure, reinforcements are on the way in the summer. However, Tennessee’s numbers problem isn’t going to get resolved in 2018. If ever there was a time for a walk-on to find a niche and hear his name called on an autumn Saturday, this is it.

There is precedent, tons of it. The freshest case is Colton Jumper, the linebacker who went from walk-on to starter the past couple of years. He’s gone, but tight end Eli Wolf, a walk-on awarded a scholarship last August, will almost certainly have a role to play this season.

If there are poster boys for Tennessee’s walk-on tradition, they are J.J. McCleskey and Nick Reveiz. Both were local kids, judged too small for scholarships from the big-time programs. The big-time programs were wrong. These are the “five-star hearts” Butch Jones should have been talking about.

J.J. McCleskey(Photo: University of Tennessee Athletic Department)

McCleskey, a DB/receiver (1989-92), and Reveiz, a linebacker (2007-10), not only earned scholarships but became starters. Both were elected team captains. McCleskey even continued to disprove convention by having an NFL career.

There are plenty more. Greg Johnson in the 1990s and Houston Thomas a decade earlier became kick-team celebrities. Tim Sewell lettered four years and earned SEC title rings in 1997-98. Another Reveiz, Shane, proved useful. Matt McGlothlin willed himself into a starting job at defensive tackle in 2006, just as David Johnson had done in 1987.

Offensive line depth is on everybody’s radar in 2018. So it was in 2009. Lane Kiffin threw a pair of senior walk-on twin brothers, Cody and Cory Sullins, into the starting lineup. They weren’t bad. Montario Hardesty rushed for 1,345 yards and Jonathan Crompton had a solid year at quarterback.